“Beware of Pride” by Ezra Taft Benson

One of Ezra Taft Benson’s landmark talks, “Beware of Pride” is striking for its directness and clarity. Although Benson wrote it while President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the talk was delivered by his counselor Gordon B. Hinckley due to Benson’s fading health. Two decades later, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf responded to and amplified its message in “Pride and the Priesthood.”

Highlights:

The central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen. Enmity means “hatred toward, hostility to, or a state of opposition.” It is the power by which Satan wishes to reign over us.

Pride is essentially competitive in nature. We pit our will against God’s. When we direct our pride toward God, it is in the spirit of “my will and not thine be done.”

My dear brethren and sisters, we must prepare to redeem Zion. It was essentially the sin of pride that kept us from establishing Zion in the days of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was the same sin of pride that brought consecration to an end among the Nephites. Pride is the great stumbling block to Zion.